IF Brazil has its Bolsa Familia, and Mexico its Progresa — schemes for alleviating poverty that have caught the fancy of international organisations — something that India has done recently is making news internationally. India’s system of social audits, that is, independent but local auditing of social programmes to fight poverty, like the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA), is attracting world attention. A 42-member delegation from 33 countries...

Did Posco exaggerate the employment potential of its Rs 50,000 crore plant in Orissa? A group of US-based experts has accused the Korean steel giant and Orissa of fudging statistics on potential jobs to hardsell the integrated steel plant. A paper prepared by Mining Zone Peoples' Solidarity Group — a collection of economic professors and engineers and others based in the US — has unravelled the figures estimated in an NCAER...

Two months after Uttar Pradesh government launched a campaign to give incentives for the scheme of giving 100-day employment to 10 lakh marginalised families under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), it has become a bone of contention between the Centre and the state government. Under the initiative, the state had decided to appoint a nodal agency, identify civil society organisations and give them incentives for ensuring 80 to...

The Food Security Act was UPA-2’s flagship programme. Jean Dreze, member of the National Advisory Council, has publicly criticised the government. He tells VAIBHAV VATS what’s gone wrong. Much like the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural employment Guarantee Act in the first term of the United Progressive Alliance, the Food Security Act was its most ambitious social welfare programme. Since discussions on the Act in the National Advisory Council began, its provisions...

The first tentative moves towards the formation of a representative body of farmers — the National Alliance of Farmers' Associations — were made by the Bharatiya Janata Party at a meeting here over the week-end. The BJP said it was of the view that efforts must be made to set up a farmers' organisation akin to the Confederation of Indian Industry and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry...